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Exception To The Rule"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall." May 27 If North Americans Only Knew"We're not going to be tossed in jail, we're not going to be tortured, we're not facing what people in the occupied territories are facing... if we decide we don't want to do it (speak out against injustice), fine, but then try to look at yourself in the mirror and say 'I'm a murderer'" - Noam Chomsky in Occupation 101
I just finished watching Occupation 101, the documentary released last year by Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish that pretty well sums up the situation in Israel/Palestine. It presents accounts from Palestinians themselves, as well as from Israeli and American peace and human rights activists, scholars, politicians, diplomats, and journalists. It takes an unflinching look at the reality of life under military occupation, and puts it into the historical and social context of an entire population of people who have been disenfranchised, dispossessed, disempowered, and left with no control over their lives. The filmakers are careful to note that the narrative expressed in this film is something not found in the North American mainstream. The reality of the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and all the subsequent obscenities are hidden behind racist assumptions of the inherent violence of Arabs, a belief in Israeli exceptionalism, a reliance on the dominant paradigm of terrorism/counter-terrorism, and the simple lack of effort on the part of the mainstream journalism establishment to seek out what life is like in the territories.
I'm not sure why I keep coming back to the Palestinian cause time after time. Perhaps I simply find such gross atrocity, such flagrant illegality, such calculated but overwhelming psychological, emotional, and physical violence so hard to bear considering the platitudes and justifications offered by so many people in my own country. I truly and thoroughly believe that the occupation is the root of the conflict. And its ramifications go beyond the checkpoints, the home demolitions, the bombings, the raids, the tanks, the soldiers, the torture, the beatings, the sonic boom fly-bys, the apartheid wall, the hundreds of thousands of settlers armed to the teeth and protected by the IDF, the Israeli-only roads, and the theft of land and water. In a study of 1000 Palestinian children done a couple of years ago, it was concluded that most of the children had simply lost the will to live. I don't care if it sounds ugly, this is cold, calculated ethnic cleansing, and I have a Prime Minister who continues to give Israel tabula rasa in its efforts to make the Palestinians disappear. An Israeli F-16 is a fucking homocide bomber, any Palestinian will tell you that.
The continuation of the occupation relies on an ignorance of Palestinian daily life. Such continuation relies on the dehumanization of Palestinians, for Israelis, Americans, and Canadians to see them as not fully human; as somehow lacking in some quality that makes them "them", and us "us". If that mythology is shattered, if Israel is finally acknowledged as a regional nuclear superpower with a bloated high-tech military and not some teeny weeny little beseiged nation in a sea of bloodthirsty Ay-rabs hungry for Jewish blood, if Israeli lives cease to be valued over and above Palestinian lives, then there is some hope for the future. For God's sake, this isn't just an issue for Palestinians, or Israelis, or Americans, or Canadians, this is an issue for the entire human race. Watch the documentary, read something outside of the Globe and Mail or the New York Times, and let's get to work. May 15 The Ceeb Makes Mistake, Airs TruthThe CBC's Israel/Palestine correspondent Neil McDonald in brilliant form:
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55882 (video appears on the left)
I wonder how much time Neil had to spend on the phone with his editor begging and pleading for them to air this segment? It is rare that the North American media ever gives a sober glimpse into the lives of Palestinians living under the Israeli boot. The best thing about the piece? McDonald's statement that what the video showed was not an *exception* to what usually happens when the IDF raids the homes of innocent Palestinian families, but what *usually* happens. And then there's the comments from the soldiers, which shows the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized and viewed as "dirty" savages. IDF raids house, woman dies, standard form apology letter #2a released by IDF when they are actually forced to admit something "regrettable" happened, and no one ever hears of it again. Makes one wonder how many of these incidents happen when there are no film crews present or the Israeli media practices "self-censorship", as one Israeli official advocated in the video above. We'd definitely never hear about it. How long are people going to continue to believe that the IDF is the "most moral army in the world"? Imagine, treat people like dogs for decades and then wonder why they're pissed all to hell. What needs to occur is a collective, worldwide realization that incidents like these aren't isolated; they're a part of a concerted and orchestrated land-grab/ethnic cleansing program that leaves no room in its racially-pure vision for the region's Palestinian inhabitants. May 04 This is What Democracy Looks Like!Yeah, I know, I haven't updated for a while. There are literally dozens of topics I could write about, but it's hard when all I've done for the past month is write and write and write and write. And now I'll be reading and writing all summer too, thanks to a pair of research grants courtesy of the Mount Allison department of Sociology. I'm helping one professor write a book, and another professor perform a study, both of which should prove incredibly fascinating. I'll probably post on here about my experiences towards the end of the summer.
So Afghanistan is a bloody mess, eh? It seems that, despite our valiant efforts to spread freedom, democracy, and Timbits to the swarthy, ungrateful Afghan masses, there are some pesky Afghans who insist on trying to blow us up. I mean, what kind of Afghan could possibly have a problem our indiscriminate killing, complicity in torture, support for warlords, drug barons, and religious absolutists, and generally doing the dirty work of American neo-colonialists? They must all be "Taliban" anyway. As for anyone in Canada who dares to assert that the mission might be, you know, kind of wrong, both morally and geopolitically - well, you're a Taliban-enabler and are Neville Chamberlain reincarnated. Cuz, ya see, we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over there (shout out to Chief of Staff General Rick Hillier - Ricky Hill, you're my dawg, man). And the Taliban for sure had aspirations of invading Canada. I read it on the internets. So just shut up about "war crimes" and "Geneva" "Conventions" and "imperialism" and "hubris". For gourd's sake, you're scaring the soldiers and lowering their morale! Wear red and slap a bumper sticker on the back of your car. That's a good citizen.
Phew, I didn't think I could keep up cynical sarcasm for a whole paragraph, but mission accomplished! That was, however, rather depressing, so I'll leave you with a pleasant thought. What if the political systems of both the United States and Canada actually superceded their ideological boundaries and went beyond the gutless pandering to a sort of political "middle ground" in the hopes of procuring more votes but at the same time succeeding in not taking a real position on anything at all? Well, it might look a little bit like the upcoming election in Scotland, which features a labour party, a solidarity party, AND a socialist party! Imagine, a world where "solidariity" and "socialism" aren't scary, dirty words for commie pinko hippies, and the concepts actually enter into mainstream political discourse! Their advertisements are pretty bitchin' too. Peep these ones from the Scottish Socialist Party:
Even Jack Layton, who represents the "far Left" on the Canadian political spectrum, has never spoken with such frankness or candor. And the ads are way more fun to watch than Smilin' Jack. Anyhoo, I'm off to bed. Viva la Revolucion, lads and lassies! April 13 Sexual Assault Charges Dropped In Duke Lacrosse CaseSo I have a lot of thoughts on this. The media coverage, the power dynamics, the racialized and gendered nature of the whole event, it all makes me so angry and so sad. And then there's the triumphant chest-beating accompanying the so-called "vindication" of these 3 privleged, white, male fratboys. Like, honestly, THANK GOD the forces of white male good triumphed over that slut of a black bitch, putting the three boys through "hell". Because we all know how much women love to falsely accuse men of rape, we all know how much black people love to falsely accuse white people of spewing racial epithets. Thank Jeebus that these upstanding young men, who did nothing wrong when they held a drunken party where a large group of privileged white male athletes enlisted the services of a young black woman in order to fulfill their misogynist fantasies in a perverse display of class, race, and gender privilege, were cleared of any wrong doing.
This news, accompanied with the University of Western Ontario student papers' "spoof issue" which featured an article making light of rape and sexual assault, and radio host Donald Imus' referring to the Rutger's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's", makes me dispair for the state of genuine progressive politics on this continent. We are backsliding. We are steeped in racism, we are steeped in sexism. But the dominant discourse isn't about how this continues racial and sexual oppression. No, the dominant discourse is about the *real* victims - white males. Whenever women or people of colour stand up and push back, they are shouted down and denigrated. Anyway, enough out of me. I'm going to let this powerful piece of poetry say what needs to be said:
For June Jordan - in thanks for the reminder that 'Wrong is not my name'
11 04 2007
I am the history of rape I am the history of a Justice whose blindfold never concealed the brownness of my skin
I am the history of a body whose services pay for pampers and formula
I am the history of a changing account
I am the ‘lying whore’ you mark your respectability against I am the history of thunderous testimony to my own worthlessness and insufficiency and tangle of pathology I am the canon of expert knowledge proclaiming my limitations and disabilities and mental deficiency and moral poverty I am the science of mongrels and abominations I am the history of a world that would rather forget I am someone’s mother, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter, someone’s beloved I am the history of a world that would rather if I just shut up and stop being so angry all the damn time while they go about their business of keeping me in my place and bending the backs of my daughters and locking up my son - while they kill and rape and torture and silence people in every direction who coincidentally are brown just like me. I am the history of your shackles and the future of my creation I am a person of note My eyes have borne witness to the history you will into oblivion and my body holds secrets I cannot forget In my ears there are whispers of transformation and from my heart I’m unearthing my truths I stand as a survivor among millions …and we are remembering our names. - Serena
From the wonderful blog called Ubuntu! that features poetry and news about rape and sexual assault. http://iambecauseweare.wordpress.com/
Edited to add: If anyone reading this thinks I should just stop being so angry, come back to me when rape, and violence, and abuses of privilege, and the existence of white males (and whoever else for that matter) who enable these things end, and THEN I'll consider calming down. March 28 Have I mentioned that I love Arundhati Roy?One of India's, and perhaps the world's, most eloquent and outspoken dissidents in the inscrutable Arundhati Roy. She has a poet's heart, and intellectual's mind, a revolutionary's passion, and I love her to death. Ms. Roy recently gave an interview on the increasingly violent climate of her home country. Here are a few excerpts:
"A recent Supreme Court judgment, allowing the Vasant Kunj Mall to resume construction though it didn’t have the requisite clearances, said in so many words that the questions of corporations indulging in malpractice does not arise! In the ERA of corporate globalization, corporate land-grab, in the ERA of Enron and Monsanto, Halliburton and Bechtel, that’s a loaded thing to say. It exposes the ideological heart of the most powerful institution in this country. The judiciary, along with the corporate press, is now seen as the lynchpin of the neo-liberal project."
"Odd things are happening. It snowed in Saudi Arabia. Owls are out in broad daylight. The Chinese government tabled a bill sanctioning the right to private property. I don’t know if all of this has to do with climate change. The Chinese Communists are turning out to be the biggest capitalists of the 21st century. Why should we expect our own parliamentary Left to be any different? Nandigram and Singur are clear signals. It makes you wonder — is the last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism? Think about it — the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnam War, the anti-apartheid struggle, the supposedly Gandhian freedom struggle in India… what’s the last station they all pull in at? Is this the end of imagination?"
"How can the rebels be the flip side of the State? Would anybody say that those who fought against apartheid — however brutal their methods — were the flip side of the State? What about those who fought the French in Algeria? Or those who fought the Nazis? Or those who fought colonial regimes? Or those who are fighting the US occupation of Iraq? Are they the flip side of the State? This facile new report-driven ‘human rights’ discourse, this meaningless condemnation game that we are all forced to play, makes politicians of us all and leaches the real politics out of everything. However pristine we would like to be, however hard we polish our halos, the tragedy is that we have run out of pristine choices."
and my personal favorite:
"While our economists number-crunch and boast about the growth rate, a million people — human scavengers — earn their living carrying several kilos of other people’s shit on their heads every day. And if they didn’t carry shit on their heads they would starve to death. Some fucking superpower this."
The whole interview is here:
Arundhati Roy is also featured in a film called "We.." which is basically one of her public addresses accompanied by images, video, and music. Here is a link to a youtube clip of my favorite part of it. She has a way of describing and explaining things that make it possible to hope.
If you google it, you should be able to find the whole movie somewhere on the internets. |
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